Friday, September 23, 2011

Kissing Cousins of RA

A very dear friend of mine called me the other day to say that her sister was recently diagnosed with hepatitis C. Immediately I thought of a blood transfusion as the cause. Boy, did I have something to learn. She in fact was diagnosed with autoimmune hepatitis. What in the world is this?

And that was the inspiration for this post. The longer I am blogging, the more I learn and the more I have to learn about what seems like to me, the many autoimmune illnesses that are kissing cousins of ra. Yes, I know, what a lovely thought. More things to possibly have to worry about. But I am putting this information out there because so many of us have so many symptoms that just don't quite fit under that tidy one diagnoses we were given.

7 comments:

And there are more. This is a very good post you put up today and it needs to be known that being dx'ed with lupus or ra or whatever, just gives "IT" title. It's ALL AUTO-IMMUNE-DISORDER's. I have finally accepted this myself because i'm tired of the list of names being thrown at me.

And then there are the conditions that walk hand-in-hand with RA, like bursitis. I've been battling that particular beastie, where it's taken up residence in the bursae of both hips, for more than a year now. Grrrr...

Tammy...thanks for the additional ones. More than anything I wish someone would come up with a cure for us all. And what gets my goat is once you get one autoimmune disease...well more seem to move right on in.

Wren...and tendonitis has been a real bummer for me from the get go. Sometimes I think the tendon issues are worse for me than the ra issues but who can really tell the difference. Like which came first, the chicken or the egg :-)

I have Celiac and RA and De Quervaine's Tendonitis. I agree - is it tendonitis or just RA in the tendons? And Hashimoto's, which appears to be healing with the gluten-free diet.

I have two children with celiac and RA, and I have siblings with Graves and Addisons, and a cousin with Myashtenia Gravis, so there seems to be some genetic component to this, too. My paternal grandmother was Hypothyroid, and pretty sure my maternal grandmother had Celiac. The Celiac genes are on both sides of the family tree, as I have two copies!

After being diagnosed with Hashimoto's, I wound up with two thyroid cancers and had to have my thyroid surgically removed. Wow! You for sure seem like you have a genetic link. There are no others in my family with these types of problems that I have developed so I am not sure how I wound up with all of what I currently own :-) And I couldn't agree with you more, I wish that more and more research would finally come up with some cures for some these autoimmune diseases.

Anne...welcome to my blog! I am so glad you dropped in but so sorry as to why you are here. You are so right with the others you have posted. Aren't relatives a pain sometimes :-) I checked out your blog and like it!